Braj Bhasha is a popular language of North India. It is also known as 'Brij Bhasha', 'Braj Bhakha' or 'Dehaati Zabaan'. This north Indian language is closely associated with Hindi language. In fact, at times it is generally considered as a dialect of Hindi language, and Braj Bhasha along with Awadhi language was considered as one of the two major literary languages of North-Central India before the Khariboli language. This popular language of central India is spoken by a majority of people. The region in which Braj Bhasha is hugely spoken is nebulously defined as the region of Braj Bhoomi. This region was defined as a political state in the Mahabharata era. This particular region lies in between the Agra-Mathura area, and it almost stretches up to the vicinity of Delhi. Today, the Braj Bhoomi is considered as a cultural-geographical body and not a proper state. Braj Bhasha is very much related with Awadhi language. It was in the medieval period, major part of the Hindi literature developed in Braj Bhasha. But, today, it is the Khariboli dialect that has taken the place as the principal model dialect of Hindi language.

Moreover, in modern India, Braj Bhasha or Brij Bhasha subsists as an unsanctioned or unofficial dialect that is spoken colloquially by natives of Braj Bhoomi. This language has great cultural as well as religious significance. A major portion of Hindi poetry and literature is in Braj Bhasha. For instance, some devotional poems devoted to Lord Krishna were also composed in this particular language.

Today, Braj Bhasha is basically considered as a rural tongue more popular in the vague Braj region that is centred near Mathura and Agra in Uttar Pradesh. This language is predominant in the following districts of the country -

Mathura

Agra

Aligarh

Bulandshahr

Gautam Buddha Nagar

Firozabad

Hathras

Etah

Besides Uttar Pradesh, this language is spoken in certain areas of Haryana specifically in Gurgaon and Faridabaddistricts. Braj Bhasha is also spoken in the neighbouring areas of Rajasthan and the main districts include -

Bharatpur

Dhaulpur

Braj Bhasha Literature
The nature of Braj Bhasha literature is defined as mystical. It is mostly associated with spiritual union of man with the Almighty God. Most of the literary work done in this language was done by poets who were God-realised saints. Majority of the traditional genre of Northern Indian literature shares this particular characteristic. Another feature of Braj Bhasha literature is that most of its work was written from a female point of view. Some of the important and highly popular works in Brij Bhasha areas follows -

Yugala Shataka by Swami Sri Sribhatta Devacarya

Vinaya Patrika by Tulsidas

Buddha Charit by Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla

Sur Sagar by Surdas

Sufi poetry by Amir Khusro

The huge literary work of this language proves that Braj Bhasha is of great significance as far as Indian languages are concerned.

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